Thursday, November 15, 2012

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

I am happy to announce I am
officially contracted with Red Adept Publishing for my
debut novel, (tentatively titled) CAPTIVE ART (CA). I'm so excited to be
working with Lynn McNamee and her team.

Here's how it all happened...

About four years ago I decided to
write a book, okay, not a book but a play. My husband was performing for our
local civic theatre and the play was only sixty pages long. I thought to myself
at the time, “I can certainly write a sixty page play!” Well, I never did
finish writing it. Instead, my mind began to wander and several other stories
filled my head.

Fast forward a few years and a bunch
of personal stuff later and here I sit having written four complete novels with
a good start on at least three others. I never set out to write because I
wanted to be an ‘author’, it was just something I thought I could do.

So I started
writing the play and shortly after that my grandmother passed away. Over the
course of the next year, I wrote my first full novel. It was more of a healing
process for me though, and very few people will ever read that story. But I
also discovered I love to write. I love creating a story and seeing it come to
life on my computer screen. In fact, if I’d known when I was younger how much I
love writing, and editing other peoples writing, my life would probably be very
different.

This brings me
to about a year and a half ago when I had the idea for CA. I was in the middle
of writing and editing a different story and eventually had to put that story
on hold because the characters in CA would not stop talking in my head (if
you're a writer, you know what I mean). Once I started, it took me exactly
sixty days to finish writing CA and I loved every minute of it because it's
exactly the kind of story I like to read, a little mystery, a little magic, and
a healthy helping of romance.

I knew right
away when I finished writing that I wanted to publish it, but publishing a book
is not something to be taken lightly. Finding an agent or publisher is HARD WORK.
Trust me. I cried several times when I got rejections. But the one thing I
didn't do was stop trying. Then, a few months ago, I happened to meet a woman
by the name of Chanda Stafford who was contracted with a small-press publisher
for her own upcoming YA novel and she suggested I submit CA to them. I was
nervous and anxious and at first not sure if that was the best thing for me and
my manuscript...and then I got THE CALL.

There is a
funny side story to the morning Lynn called me. Let’s just say I’m lucky I
opened my power bill that day and discovered they had my account mixed up with
someone else, otherwise they would have been shutting it off! So there I was,
standing at my desk at my day job, fuming over the power company’s mistake and
my cell phone rings with a number I don’t recognize. On any other normal day I
would have let it go to voicemail, but because of my frustrated state, I
answered it. The next few moments went something like this…

“Hi, this is
Lynn from Red Adept Publishing. Is this Laura?”

“Uh, yeah.” (eloquent,
I know)

“I’m calling
because we’ve reviewed your manuscript and we’d like to publish it.”

“Um, okay.”
(again, eloquent)

As Lynn and I
talked though, my frustration evaporated and eventually turned into elation. So
now, after a year of sending out query letters and doing edits, my story has
found a great home.

There are
several things that need to happen before I can share CA with all of you, but I’ll
be sure to keep you posted. In the meantime, here are some fun pictures for you…

OMGosh!!! YAYAYAY! I'm so proud of you for taking the chance and sending it in, in spite of your fears! And now look, you're going to have a readership! This is amazing. Huge Congrats, and I'm off to TWEET up your wonderful news! <3

Soooooo excited for you! I was in a meeting when I saw this and whoooped! Couldn't respond right away but baby I was jumping up and down excited for you!!!! And you took pictures! BRILLIANT!!! So proud of you, excited, and elated. It's ON!!! Here we goooooo...